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Will websites even be a ‘thing’ in 5 years? For some reason, I can’t stop thinking about this question. I know it’s my job to think about this kind of thing but it’s actually not work and clients that are driving this minor obsession. Instead it’s a lingering feeling that we’re on the cusp of another…

Where are websites going?

Will websites even be a ‘thing’ in 5 years?

For some reason, I can’t stop thinking about this question. I know it’s my job to think about this kind of thing but it’s actually not work and clients that are driving this minor obsession. Instead it’s a lingering feeling that we’re on the cusp of another one of those tectonic technology shifts and that this time the apple cart getting turned over will be the Web. I also read this article a couple months ago and that got me thinking.

If I had to answer the question right now, I’d say websites in their current form will still be around in five years but they will be dying a slow death. I don’t think businesses will be creating websites in five years, at least not the way we do today. In fact, I predict that in the next two years we’ll see a big shift in the nature of website.

Instead of websites, I believe that business will move to creating apps for their online marketing needs. In my hopeful imagination these will be “thin” and “universal” apps that can be installed on any device (iPhone, Android device, laptop, etc.) and that pull content in from a cloud-based data repository, like those that feed our websites today.

Besides (or in addition to) the Danny Crichton article I referenced above, I can articulate a few reasons that this shift is coming…

Reason #1, Security

It’s just too easy to take a website down. Every business is one offending gaff or PR disaster away from having its website(s) attacked by Anonymous (whom I generally don’t consider a bad group) or some other nefarious hacking organization. With the discovery of Heartbleed millions of businesses woke up earlier this year to how tenuous and insecure the Web is.

There are measures that can be taken to protect your website from being hacked (putting it on a content delivery network, intrusion detection software, having your own distributed servers) but, face it, it’s an arms race. If hackers target your businesses website, it’s going to take added measures, added time and added cost to keep them at bay. Hackers and security issues aren’t problems that are going away any time soon but they’re also much bigger problems today with all of us hanging our websites on the same, mostly unregulated, public network.

Ugh, this recent coming to light of this MASSIVE data breach puts a big ugly exclamation point on Reason #1. We can only live, work and shop online with our heads thrust this deeply in the sand for so long.

Reason #2, Politics & Security

In this recent article in the Atlantic Gordon Goldstein describes the state of the Internet and the likelihood that in the near future we’ll see the rise of separate Internets within specific countries or regions of the globe. It makes a lot of sense. On the heels of the Snowden / NSA spying scandal and without any objective, neutral organization to manage it, the Internet’s control is unlikely to remain in the tacit hands of the U.S. It’s a short leap then to imagining countries creating their own sovereign versions of the Internet.

How that affects websites is hard to define. For certain there would be competing domain name systems and plenty of additional work and cost to create a website that runs on all (or more than one) regional Internet. Running your site on more than one Internet would likely be another technological hurdle (read: cost more) for website owners to take on. Running your site on every Internet could cost a lot. One could see global brands like Nike and Altria taking this on but not most of the law firms and businesses that we work with.

Reason #3, The Cost Trend

Websites, especially complex data-driven sites, cost a lot to design, build maintain. Outsourcing to offshore developers, using open source software, using templated site designs are all good tactics for saving time and money on website projects. But on the other side of the coin, the ever-more-complicated technological aspects of websites pushes costs up. A sophisticated, CMS-driven website with 20-30 custom-designed templates that is compatible with the leading 5-10 browsers for desktop and mobile devices and integrates with one to three other data sources and applications is almost always going to take between 500 and 2000 man hours to deliver. Depending on the skill levels and locations of your business analyst, marketing consultant, copywriter, designer, developer, QA team and project manager your average per hour cost is anywhere from $50 to $300 per hour. Doing the math is easy but budgeting for that kind of expense is not, at least not for many mid-sized organizations.

Designing, building and maintaining native (non-web) apps would not be nearly as expensive. If businesses could feasibly ditch their websites and, instead, post a link on their home pages that says: “To learn more about our company, download and install our app!” I’m sure they would in an instant. They would do it even faster if we could create one app for all devices and operating systems.

Reason #4, Generations

Every generation invents its own lingo, style, music and, increasingly, technology. The generation coming of age today is going to create something better than the Web. Probably they already have and I just don’t know about it yet because I’m past my prime. To them, having a website for your business will be similar to how we look at having a fax machine today. “Really? You still have a website? Yeah, I guess I can see how that could come in handy once in a while, for your older customers. When was the last time someone actually used it?”

Reason #5, Net Non-Neurality

Stick a fork in it, it’s done. The Internet is going to become a tiered system where larger entities buy preferred, faster transfer rates. When this happens the whole idea of having a visually rich, data-intensive website is going to fall way down the marketing priority list.

Reason #6, Social

Marketing has been turned on its head by social media. Sure you can still spend time trying to tell people what they should think of your products or services (on your website) but aren’t you better off engaging with your customers and prospects through social media channels. If you had to pick one, which would you pick? My prediction is that in the coming years, companies and organizations will spend less and less time on this old school marketing and more time influencing and engaging with the dialogues about their product or industry in social media.

Reason #7, Mobile Devices

Mobile traffic is well on its way to dwarfing traditional web traffic. Yet mobile browsing is still nothing close to an optimal experience. Responsive design is cute is light years away from meeting our mobile needs (see why in How to Solve the Hamburger Problem by Paddi MacDonnell).

As more of our work and personal data browsing are done on mobile devices, we’ll rely less on that ole ubiquitous web browser and more on apps to do our tasks. I don’t imagine anyone wanting to buy a plane ticket two years from now will be typing in a username and password to log into an airline’s website. More likely that person will have the Delta, Southwest or Kayak app on their device. (If she doesn’t have it, she’ll download and install it in a matter of seconds.) That person will search, find and purchase the ticket through an app without ever touching a website or web browser. In fact, that future person will probably have all her payment information programmed into the phone, eliminating the need to enter credit card numbers and expiration dates. In other words, the app world will be a whole lot more secure (hopefully).

Soon we’ll be saying, “Is there an app for that?” without a hint of snarkiness and we’ll laugh if you tell us to open that decrepit old web browser application on our mobile phones.

Got any more reasons? Email me at per@nulltenrec.com, I’d love to hear them.